As Good as Live Aid (85)

Saturday, October 6

Alright, this was the cover of the lowest common denominator newspaper Toronto Sun yesterday. This is after the first two games of the season, where the Leafs took the Eastern Champions, and one of the most deadly teams in the league to two one-goal games:

Ok. This is some fuckin bullshit. You cannot absolutely tell me that this wasn't something that was planned in advance. This is some of the most cynical, biased reporting I have ever seen. By cynical I don't mean that it isn't positive and gung-ho about the Leafs chances. I mean that it is so clearly thought up to take advantage of a situation and exploit the passions of the Leaf fan base who have no option but to coin up and sup from the trough of such slop. No option because this is the only thing that gets printed about the Leafs in Toronto.

I only realized this after I moved away. The hysteria that surrounds the team astounds me. The microscopic detail that each and every move the team makes is claustrophobic at best, strangulating at worst.

I've written here before about the typical Toronto media response to Leaf woes, and I especially wrote the shit out of this article about its main asshole proponent, Howard Berger. A man who right at this moment, has spaghetti sauce in his mustache. There is such a culture of "EVERYTHING WITH THE LEAFS IS HORRIBLE! RUN!", that I'm not surprised that fans go apeshit during free-agency, or that they do the absolute most despicable thing you can do at a game (besides pound on the glass): boo your own team. The three lowest forms of life are 3) Glass pounders. 2) Home team boo'ers. 1)Radio DJ's. 1 being the lowest. Guess where Howard Berger is?

Now I'm not absolving the average fan's behavior. It's not the media's fault for him/her being a stupid sheep with an ATM card. The fan has to take responsibility for themselves, and stop being such a gullible robot being taken advantage of by people who want them listen to their radio show, or buy their rag of a newspaper. It's just really, really hard for them to do that due to the consistency of the message beamed at them every day, all year long.

The sad thing about all of this is that the fan's dilemma comes out of a great thing: Total love for the Toronto Maple Leafs. That fact makes the people who exploit them all the worse.